Make Sure High Speed Rail Authority Is On Track

We Need To Make Sure High Speed Rail Authority Is On Track - California Progress Report

We Need To Make Sure High Speed Rail Authority Is On Track



By Traci Sheehan
Executive Director
Planning and Conservation League

Last Thursday, residents from the Bay Area joined forces with PCL to attend the Senate budget subcommittee hearing on funding for California's High Speed Rail Authority. The goal of the group was to send a strong message - California must do High Speed Rail right!

With passage of Proposition 1A last November, voters elected to spend nearly $10 billion to construct a high speed train system that would stretch from Los Angeles to San Francisco and Sacramento. Support for this mega-project in such lean economic times is proof that California is willing to invest in a clean and innovative transportation network to meet future demands. However, since the election, many High Speed Rail supporters are becoming disillusioned with the process the Authority is undertaking to plan the route.

Constructing such a vast train system will require careful planning and a great deal of outreach to ensure the best, most efficient train is built at the least cost and with the least environmental impact. It's a tough task but if the Authority fails in this early planning stage to do it right, the entire system could be doomed to fail. Instead of High Speed Rail for the 21st Century, Californians would be stuck paying the bill for our own version of Boston's "Big Dig."

That's why PCL is teaming up with local residents who care about High Speed Rail to encourage the State legislature to provide the needed scrutiny and oversight of the Authority and their work. Last Thursday's subcommittee hearing was our first chance to testify before the Senate and we made the most of it. Thirty residents spoke, all asking for increased oversight and better community outreach. The subcommittee members heard our message loud and clear and committed to helping us achieve these goals.

Many, including PCL, support the recommendations made by the Legislative Analyst's Office that perhaps the time had come to transform the Authority from the small study-based group that was needed prior to passage of 1A, and create an organization that's capable of building the system. The High Speed Rail system will be the biggest construction project this state has ever undertaken. We need to get it right at the departure to make sure we have a successful arrival.

Traci Sheehan is the Executive Director of the Planning and Conservation League, a statewide, nonprofit lobbying organization. For more than thirty years, PCL has fought to develop a body of environmental laws in California that is the best in the United States. PCL staff review virtually every environmental bill that comes before the California Legislature each year. It has testified in support or opposition of thousands of bills to strengthen California's environmental laws and fight off rollbacks of environmental protections.
Posted on May 10, 2009